Laboratory creping equipment

Tissue production is largely dependent on the creping process as creping influences the paper properties and thus the quality of the end product and the runnability of the tissue machine. The process is very complex and includes numerous variables affecting the adhesion, and ultimately the creping of the tissue paper. To perform experiments on a full-scale machine, or even on a pilot machine, is very costly; therefore, a laboratory scale creping device is demanded, able to replicate conditions encountered on a tissue machine. In this paper, new laboratory testing equipment is developed, whereby the adhesion between paper and metal surfaces (when scraping off the paper with configurations similar to the industrial process) can be studied. A new method to adhere paper to metal, used in the new laboratory creping equipment, is also developed. To evaluate the equipment, different creping angles were tested. The scraping tests show a trend in decreasing creping force for an increasing creping angle.